Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus
The Holy Martyrs Eutropius, Cleonicus, and Basiliscus, at Amasea in Pontus
Martyr · d. c. 308, at Amasea in Pontus (Basiliscus later at Comana)
Commemorated 3 March — Martyrdom at Amasea — Eutropius and Cleonicus crucified
Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus (†c. 308) were three martyrs of Amasea in Pontus, fellow-soldiers, kinsmen and companions of the great-martyr Theodore the Recruit (Tyron) — Basiliscus, the tradition holds, being Theodore's own nephew, and Eutropius and Cleonicus his brothers-in-arms. Left in prison after Theodore's death by fire, they were brought before the governor Asclepiodotus in the last great persecution, and neither flattery, bribes, nor torture could move them from Christ. When they were led to sacrifice, the idols were shattered — the tradition says — at Eutropius's prayer. Eutropius and Cleonicus were crucified at Amasea, in imitation of their Lord; Basiliscus was held back and put to death later at Comana, where his own feast is kept on May 22. Their memory is kept together on March 3.
Companions of Theodore the Recruit
The three martyrs of this entry belong to the cluster of soldier-saints of Amasea on the river Iris, in the Pontic country of Asia Minor, whose head and elder brother in martyrdom is Theodore the Recruit — Tyron, the young conscript burned alive at Amasea about the year 306, and one of the two great warrior-Theodores of the Byzantine calendar. The tradition binds Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus to him closely: they were his fellow-soldiers of the same garrison and, in the fuller Greek passions, his kinsmen — Basiliscus named expressly as Theodore's nephew (his sister's son), and Eutropius and Cleonicus as brothers or sworn brothers who had shared Theodore's confession and his imprisonment. When Theodore went to his death, these were left behind in the same prison to await their own trial, and the account of their passion takes up where his leaves off.
The trial before Asclepiodotus
The persecution under which they suffered is the last and fiercest, the assault on the Church begun by Diocletian and carried on in the East under Galerius and Maximinus (Maximinus Daia); the year is given as about 308, a little after Theodore's own martyrdom. A new governor, Asclepiodotus, had come to Pontus, and to him the three imprisoned soldiers were brought. He began, as the magistrates so often did with promising young men, not with the rack but with persuasion — promises of honour, advancement and the emperor's favour, and rich gifts, if they would only sacrifice to the gods and put their Christian folly behind them. Eutropius, whom the account makes the eldest and the spokesman of the three, answered for them all, refusing the bribes and confessing the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and mocking the powerlessness of the idols. Turning from soft words to force, Asclepiodotus had them scourged and racked, their bodies torn — yet, the passion relates, they bore it unshaken, strengthened by prayer and by the memory of Theodore gone before them.
The vision and the breaking of the idols
The tradition tells that, as the three prayed in their affliction, Christ appeared to them with a company of angels — as he had appeared to Theodore in his prison — comforting them and promising them the crown, so that they went to their further torments rejoicing. When at last Asclepiodotus had them led to a temple to sacrifice — of Serapis, some accounts say — Eutropius prayed aloud that God would show the nothingness of the idols before the whole crowd; and at his prayer the ground shook, the temple was thrown down, and the idols were shattered to fragments, so that instead of drawing the martyrs into apostasy the very sacrifice turned to the confusion of the persecutors. Enraged rather than converted, the governor pronounced sentence of death.
Martyrdom: the crucifixion of Eutropius and Cleonicus
Eutropius and Cleonicus were condemned to be crucified — nailed each to a cross, and so to die in the very manner of the Lord whom they confessed, a death the hymnography dwells upon as their conforming to Christ. They gave up their souls upon the crosses at Amasea, about the year 308, and are honoured together on this day as the two who were "lifted up" for Christ.
Basiliscus reserved, and his martyrdom at Comana
Basiliscus, the youngest and Theodore's nephew, was not put to death with them: the account has him kept back in prison, whether because his trial was deferred or because the governor hoped that, left alone, the young man would yet yield. His martyrdom came later and elsewhere — at Comana in Pontus, under a succeeding governor (named Agrippa in his passion), where after fresh tortures he was beheaded, his body cast into a river and recovered by the faithful, and a church raised over his relics. This later suffering at Comana is kept as Basiliscus's own feast on May 22, and has its own entry — Basiliscus of Comana — where the martyrdom, the relics, and the vision granted at his shrine to John Chrysostom are treated in full; on March 3 he is remembered in the company of Eutropius and Cleonicus, with whom his confession began. On the near-identity of the two commemorations, and the like-named martyr of Comana, see Disputed questions.
Feast and commemoration
The three are commemorated together on March 3 (church date; New Calendar civil March 3, Old Calendar civil March 16), the day the Byzantine synaxaria assign to the martyrdom at Amasea. The commemoration is kept universally in the Greek and Slavonic menaia, always in close association with Theodore the Recruit of February 17, to whose company and kindred they belonged. Basiliscus carries a second, individual feast on May 22, for his martyrdom at Comana — so that he is honoured twice, once with his companions and once alone. Where March 3 falls within Great Lent (as it commonly does, the date lying in the movable Lenten weeks in most years), the martyrs' office is combined with the Triodion and their memory kept at the Presanctified or at Vespers and Matins.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Your martyrs, O Lord, in their contest received from you, our God, the crowns of incorruption; for, armed with your strength, they cast down the tyrants and shattered the powerless insolence of the demons. By their supplications, O Christ God, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Kontakion — Tone 2
As three unconquered soldiers of the Trinity, bound together in the one faith, you trod down the pride of the enemy and were lifted up upon the Cross with Christ; wherefore, O Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus, you have received the unfading crown.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
The three are shown as soldier-martyrs, young men in the military dress of the late Roman army or in the martyr's tunic and cloak, each holding the cross of confession; where the group is named beside Theodore the Recruit they are drawn into his warrior type. A narrative image proper to their passion shows Eutropius and Cleonicus upon two crosses, conformed to the crucified Christ, with Basiliscus standing apart as the one reserved for a later death — the detail by which the scene is told apart from a common martyrdom. No storable pre-modern image of the three has been identified (the Menologion of Basil II, the usual first resort for minor saints of the fixed year, covers only September to February and so has no March miniature); the entry is noted as wanting an icon.
Disputed questions
Basiliscus of March 3 and Basiliscus of Comana (May 22). The Basiliscus commemorated here with Eutropius and Cleonicus is, in the received tradition, the same martyr honoured separately on May 22 as Basiliscus of Comana — Theodore the Recruit's nephew, reserved from the Amasea sentence and afterwards beheaded at Comana. The two feasts thus keep the two stages of one life: the confession at Amasea (March 3) and the martyrdom at Comana (May 22). Because that second martyrdom has an independent feast, an independent passion (BHG 241–242), and a cultus of its own at the martyrium outside Comana, Basiliscus also carries his own entry under the May 22 epithet, per the project's constitution (a named member of a company with independent veneration receives a file, to which the group file links); that entry and this one describe one man, not two. Readers and cataloguers should not mint a second, distinct saint for the March 3 Basiliscus as though he were another person from the Comana martyr; the Wikidata item Basiliscus, early-4th-century martyr (Q4104472) likewise attaches to the Comana identity, with the day of death at Comana. The companion Cleonicus is catalogued at Wikidata as Q3650618 ("Cleonicus, early 4th-century martyr of Pontus"). Not to be confused with the several other martyrs named Basiliscus in the calendar.